The head of English Heritage has accused schools of producing a generation of children who know so little about the past that they are incapable of appreciating a walk through Trafalgar Square or a visit to the National Gallery.

Simon Thurley, the chief executive, said the obsession with teaching children about Hitler and Stalin meant they knew virtually nothing about their own country. He said the failure to understand "the nuts and bolts" of English history was undermining national identity.

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Re: Who's that on Nelson's Column? Schoolchildren think it's Mandela

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gray Ghost

The head of English Heritage has accused schools of producing a generation of children who know so little about the past that they are incapable of appreciating a walk through Trafalgar Square or a visit to the National Gallery.

Simon Thurley, the chief executive, said the obsession with teaching children about Hitler and Stalin meant they knew virtually nothing about their own country. He said the failure to understand "the nuts and bolts" of English history was undermining national identity.

That is encouraging criticism from Simon Thurley
The whole reason i am a WN is because i am keen and proud of my history and culture etc... So if Children were taught of our achievements etc, they would be much more proud of their nation and people and therefore should lead to more nationalistic tendencies

This is no Joke. I have lived with a University-Level History Student and she did not know ANYTHING about pre-WWII history. She didn't know which century the Civil War was in.. she thought 14th Century (300 years off).

Obviously she did a special course that focussed only on the Holocaust... and it turns out she was Jewish. 3 years to focus on the Holocaust and you come out knowing **** all about anything else. Is this really useful? (Funded by the Tax-Payer too) Or Propaganda?

I read an article in British Archeology magazine by the English heritage Education head. He said archiologists "deconstruct the notion of ethnic identity" in their work. It also had articles on how Tessa Fowell and her cuting EH funding. And in other articles it said how white and middle class it is to have an appreciation of the countryside. To show the ability the relate to the countryside it seems only whites have this and blacks and Asians don't.

Another article about the giving back of an Indian headdress, to the blood indians and their numinous site called "head smashed in buffalo jump" and how predudiced and opressive the whites were {still are, will the Labour governement tax inheritance guilt?}. Anyways English Heritage seem to be trying to be Pc its just that the enemies of reality and history can't allow even facts to be told.

Something has to be done about the tunnel vision modern education promotes. Back at Cambridge me and a friend went along to a supervision. Somehow the discussion got onto historiography and the 19th century take on the Saxon past. Well, my colleague went all quiet through this until it emerged that she, a third year undergraduate who went on to get a 2.1, literally didn't know the meaning of the word Victorian.

At our school we had conscientious history teachers who bothered to give us the back-story beyond what the syllabus demands, but all many of this generation know is Europe 1919-1938 and the obligatory grounding in Holocaustianity without context or perspective. How this is preferable to rote learning beats me.